ENAC Seminar Series by M. Claypool
Event details
| Date | 29.04.2021 |
| Hour | 10:30 › 11:15 |
| Speaker | Mollie Claypool |
| Location | Online |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
10:30 – 11:15 – M. Claypool
PhD candidate at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, London, UK
Architecture in the Age of Automation
The state of built environment production today serves as a tangible example of societal values. Inequity abounds. And architecture is complicit in these asymmetries. It is therefore vital it is to radically rethink what is built, and how. In the last several decades, broadly speaking architecture’s disciplinary practices have been subjugated by neoliberal capitalism. And one of the most imminent threats, and opportunities, for architecture is automation. While there is a need to increase automation in construction due to significant automation gaps, focussing on the potentials of science and technology alone is not the answer. Nor is the representation, affect and variation – an exuberance of form – of the architects of the first digital turn, which fell into conflict with existing building practices. Automation can instead be reframed as a design project. Architecture in the age of automation must learn from, and critique, previous paradigms while also rethinking frameworks for production. Automation as a design project enables this talk to navigate a terrain where scientific knowledge and the material production of technologies can be knotted into sociopolitical processes and imaginaries. When framed in this way, automation can become an arena through which architects can raise and discuss issues such as ownership, distribution, labour and the culture and impact of automation on architectural production. These are shared and global issues that transcend place, cultures and contexts. By addressing them through automation, the discipline can utilise automation in architectural production for the revitalising of a collective social project. Building upon the rich legacy of community participation and the notion of a social project in architecture, this talk presents an engaged scholarship approach that transcends both disciplinary boundaries between history and theory of the digital turn and practice within processes of automation, radically restructuring disciplinary understandings of labour, value and expertise.
Short bio:
Mollie Claypool is an architecture theorist working on issues of social justice including labour and work, concerned specifically with the implications of new technologies and automation on architectural production and disciplinary social practices. She is Director of Automated Architecture Ltd (AUAR) and Co-Director of AUAR Labs at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL where she has been a Lecturer since 2015. At The Bartlett she is History & Theory Coordinator in MArch Architectural Design, a postgraduate programme in B-Pro, and is Managing Editor of Prospectives, a new open-access journal launched in 2020. She previously ran Unit 19 in MArch Architecture Part II from 2012-2018, and was Co-Director of BSc Architecture Part I from 2014-2018. Mollie is co-author of Robotic Building: Architecture in the Age of Automation (Detail Edition 2019) and author of the SPACE10 report “The Digital in Architecture: Then, Now and in the Future” (2019). Previously, Mollie was a Course Lecturer in History & Theory at the AA School of Architecture. She has studied at Pratt Institute, AA School of Architecture and The Bartlett. In addition to her work in architecture, she works as a birth activist, doula and trade unionist.
PhD candidate at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, London, UK
Architecture in the Age of Automation
The state of built environment production today serves as a tangible example of societal values. Inequity abounds. And architecture is complicit in these asymmetries. It is therefore vital it is to radically rethink what is built, and how. In the last several decades, broadly speaking architecture’s disciplinary practices have been subjugated by neoliberal capitalism. And one of the most imminent threats, and opportunities, for architecture is automation. While there is a need to increase automation in construction due to significant automation gaps, focussing on the potentials of science and technology alone is not the answer. Nor is the representation, affect and variation – an exuberance of form – of the architects of the first digital turn, which fell into conflict with existing building practices. Automation can instead be reframed as a design project. Architecture in the age of automation must learn from, and critique, previous paradigms while also rethinking frameworks for production. Automation as a design project enables this talk to navigate a terrain where scientific knowledge and the material production of technologies can be knotted into sociopolitical processes and imaginaries. When framed in this way, automation can become an arena through which architects can raise and discuss issues such as ownership, distribution, labour and the culture and impact of automation on architectural production. These are shared and global issues that transcend place, cultures and contexts. By addressing them through automation, the discipline can utilise automation in architectural production for the revitalising of a collective social project. Building upon the rich legacy of community participation and the notion of a social project in architecture, this talk presents an engaged scholarship approach that transcends both disciplinary boundaries between history and theory of the digital turn and practice within processes of automation, radically restructuring disciplinary understandings of labour, value and expertise.
Short bio:
Mollie Claypool is an architecture theorist working on issues of social justice including labour and work, concerned specifically with the implications of new technologies and automation on architectural production and disciplinary social practices. She is Director of Automated Architecture Ltd (AUAR) and Co-Director of AUAR Labs at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL where she has been a Lecturer since 2015. At The Bartlett she is History & Theory Coordinator in MArch Architectural Design, a postgraduate programme in B-Pro, and is Managing Editor of Prospectives, a new open-access journal launched in 2020. She previously ran Unit 19 in MArch Architecture Part II from 2012-2018, and was Co-Director of BSc Architecture Part I from 2014-2018. Mollie is co-author of Robotic Building: Architecture in the Age of Automation (Detail Edition 2019) and author of the SPACE10 report “The Digital in Architecture: Then, Now and in the Future” (2019). Previously, Mollie was a Course Lecturer in History & Theory at the AA School of Architecture. She has studied at Pratt Institute, AA School of Architecture and The Bartlett. In addition to her work in architecture, she works as a birth activist, doula and trade unionist.
Practical information
- General public
- Invitation required
- This event is internal
Organizer
- ENAC
Contact
- Cristina Perez